English added by me :)
Sometimes I think about how and why some people had such a *bad* reaction to the end of Steven Universe, specifically in regards to the Diamonds living.
Even though they no longer are causing harm to others and are able to actually undo some of their previous harm by living, some folks reacted as though this ending was somehow morally suspect. Morally bankrupt, even.
And I think it might be because so many of us were raised on a very specific kind of kids media trope:
They all fall to their deaths.
Disney loves chucking their bad guys off cliffs. And it makes sense- in a moral framework where villains *must* be punished (regardless of whether their death will actually prevent further harm or not), but killing of any kind is morally bad for the hero, the narrative must find a way to kill the villain without the protagonists doing a murder.
It's a moral assumption that a person can *deserve* to die, that it is cosmically just for them to die, that them dying is evidence that the story itself is morally good and correct. Scar *deserves* to die, but it would be bad for Simba to kill him. So....cliff. (edit: yes, cliff then hyenas. But cliff first. Lol.)
Steven Universe, whatever else it's faults, took a step back and said "but if killing people is bad, then people dying is bad", and instead of dropping White Diamond off a cliff, asked "what would actual *restorative*, not punitive, justice look like? What would actual reparations mean here? If the goal is to heal, not just to punish, how do we handle those who have done harm?" And then did that.
Which I think is interesting, and that there was pushback against it is interesting.
It also reminds me of the folks who get very weird about Aang not killing Ozai at the end of Avatar. And like, Ozai still gets chucked in prison, so it doesn't even push back on our cultural ideas of punitive justice *that much.* and still, I've seen people get real mad that the child monk who is the last survivor of a genocide that wiped out his entire pacifist culture didn't do a murder.
Pokemon headcanon that once Absol are studied and people realize they prevent disasters instead of causing them, particularly dangerous workplaces get themselves a workplace Absol and it also decreases accidents.
Construction sites and fishing ships and factories will have one that pretty much just lazes about until it just gets up howling one day and knocks a dude down. They almost never figure out what would have happened but they're always like "yes absol thank you absol I am so grateful to be on the floor right now. Can I offer you a treat in this trying time"
ADHD is such nonsense sometimes. I was worried my PMDD had escalated and was continuing into my cycle and that I’d never know the warmth of sunshine on my skin or the fresh taste of strawberries.
And then I decluttered the bedroom and removed something I’d been meaning to tackle for weeks and ah, I see. I am not in actual fact on the brink of a nervous breakdown, I was just visually overstimulated and my ADHD was doing the nervous system equivalent of a chihuahua shaking itself to death out of sheer nervous existence. As though I don’t have actual Horrors to be overwhelmed by but no, the chair in the corner that had become a dumping ground for all my stuff was my mental limit.
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is a DnD expansion with canon gay art, singular they, and a whole section on consent and respect at the table which is like... absolutely choice.